


The Jedi Returns

by mistr3ssquickly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: F/M, Gen, I don't know where this story is going but I want to go with it wherever that happens to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6337303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistr3ssquickly/pseuds/mistr3ssquickly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Leia read about Tatooine while studying on Coruscant, learning about organized crime in the Outer Rim and its impact on intergalactic trade and economic trends, but the reality of it is a surprise to her, the dry static of the air and the heat that presses against her like a solid blanket the minute she steps off the <i>Falcon</i> a surprise for which no textbook or lecture could have ever prepared her. She raises a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding brightness of the twin suns, the second barely risen above the horizon but dazzling already, Luke’s back watery through the shimmers of heat when she squints ahead at him, despite the bare handful of steps between them.</i>
</p><p> </p><p><i>He’d physically flinched when Lando told him their destination. Looked for all the world like he might cry, just for a heartbeat, before drawing up the artificial calm Leia has quickly grown to dislike, something he learnt in his time away from her, from the Rebellion.</i><br/> </p><p>A look at life on the desert planet Luke Skywalker calls <i>home.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jedi Returns

**The Jedi Returns**

_Tatooine_

Leia read about Tatooine while studying on Coruscant, learning about organized crime in the Outer Rim and its impact on intergalactic trade and economic trends, but the reality of it is a surprise to her, the dry static of the air and the heat that presses against her like a solid blanket the minute she steps off the _Falcon_ a surprise for which no textbook or lecture could have ever prepared her. She raises a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding brightness of the twin suns, the second barely risen above the horizon but dazzling already, Luke’s back watery through the shimmers of heat when she squints ahead at him, despite the bare handful of steps between them.

He’d physically flinched when Lando told him their destination. Looked for all the world like he might cry, just for a heartbeat, before drawing up the artificial calm Leia has quickly grown to dislike, something he learnt in his time away from her, from the Rebellion.

He demonstrates none of that reluctance now, leading Leia and Lando into the nearest town and bartering for passage through the Jundland Wastes, only the gleam of sweat on his brow betraying any sort of discomfort as he holds out his hand to Leia and helps her climb into the rented landspeeder. She gets to see his piloting skills first-hand as he drives them through the canyons and valleys carved between jagged sandstone and drifting dunes, the speed of their journey enough to have her gripping the side of the ‘speeder, white-knuckled, Lando asking her softly when Luke stops in the shade of a modest hut if she’s all right.

“I’m sorry,” Luke says, helping her down, her legs rubbery under her despite her insistence that she’s _fine,_ adrenaline bleeding through her like poison. “It’s a distance, and we don’t want to be out too long at midday. It’s dangerous.”

“It’s fine,” she repeats, kissing him on the cheek. “You fly well.”

Luke goes very pink, at that, awkward as he leads them into the hut.

It’s a mess inside, sand blown in where the door wasn’t quite latched, the drawers and compartments of the desk and cupboards all open, their contents sticking out as if hastily rifled. Luke looks around with a grim expression, his mouth tight, and moves a pile of cloth — old clothes, Leia would guess — off of the table at the far end of the room, righting one of the two chairs and inviting Leia and Lando to sit. He serves them two mugs of clear water he purchased along with the ‘speeder, his motions controlled and fluid, like a dance. Recites as he serves them what sounds like a prayer, his voice unusually soft as he speaks.

_The skin cracks like a pod._   
_There never is enough water._   
_Imagine the drip of it,_   
_the small splash, echo_   
_in a tin mug,_   
_the voice of a kindly god._

“Blessing,” Lando says, raising his mug.

Leia copies his motion and words, waiting to drink until he’s brought the mug to his lips, and then copies that, too.

She helps Luke as best she can when he turns to tidy the mess surrounding them, flattening papers and folding rumpled bedsheets, sweeping the sand out into the raucous heat of midday. Luke is silent as they work, save for a murmured _thank you_ when she hands him something or holds open the curtain dividing the middle of the room for him, hurt surrounding him like a perfume. He unfolds one of the sheets she’s set aside, once the hut is tidied, tucks it around the mattress on the bed in the far corner. Looks around for something else to do once that’s done, darting a furtive glance at Leia and Lando when he finds nothing else to capture his attention, awkward as he drops his gaze.

“Should probably work on our infiltration plan,” Lando says, coming to Luke’s obviously desperate rescue. “Won’t be easy getting past the Hutt’s guard, let alone getting Han out. We’ll need a plan and a back-up plan and a back-up for the back-up plan, at least.”

Luke nods, slipping past Leia like a shadow and pulling her chair away from the table for her, settling in his own seat only once she’s sat down beside him. He’s unusually quiet as Lando shares what he knows already about Jabba’s palace, what information they’ll need to gather. Looks from Lando to Leia and back again, focusing with an unblinking gaze on whomever is speaking. He rubs his right forearm every so often, where his bionic hand is attached to his flesh arm. Worrying the invisible seam, as if it’s causing him pain.

“We should go in and kill them all,” he says quietly when Lando leans back in his chair with a sigh, his list of suggestions laid out before them like an inventory. “Save the people here from the Hutt’s tyranny, once and for all.”

Lando shrugs. Leia does her best to keep her jaw from dropping.

“That seems a little extreme, don’t you think?” she says.

Luke looks at her, an unexpected fury coming off of him like the midday heat radiating from the sand outside the thick, cool clay of their hideout. “No,” he says. “But we can go with a different plan, if that makes you more comfortable.”

“I think that would be best,” Leia says.

She leaves him to his silence, hashing out the second of Lando’s suggested approaches while Luke sits and listens, planning Lando’s infiltration of Jabba’s armed guard, a false arrest, a disguise. It’s the best plan they’ve got, easily the most foolproof and least likely to get them all killed, but it’s also the plan that puts her at the highest risk, puts her in the most danger of capture. She tells Lando she doesn’t mind, tells him briefly of her capture on the _Death Star,_ her interrogation by Darth Vader and his soldiers. She tells him that Jabba doesn’t frighten her nearly so much as a man in a mask who can see her thoughts with little more than a flick of his hand, her pulse rising in her throat as she speaks, terror coming back on her like a wave of nausea.

“We’ll be there to protect you,” Luke says, his voice soft, once Leia has run out of reassurances and closed her mouth around the bitter taste of fear pushing at the back of her throat. “If it goes wrong, we’ll rescue you _and_ Han.” He looks at her, finally, blue eyes gone grey in the muted light of the hut. “I promise.”

She puts her hand over his, wraps her fingers around his palm when he flinches, paranoid still about his new prosthetic. “Thank you,” she says.

He closes his fingers around hers and squeezes, the barest hint of a smile warming his expression as he does.

———

Luke leaves them when the first sun has nearly set, its twin glowing blood red in the purpling sky, promising to share their plan with Chewbacca and pick up some supplies from the evening market, brushing a kiss against Leia’s cheek before he goes, sweet and simple and so earnest it _hurts,_ Leia’s chest aching as she watches him go. She treats Lando to the look she’s learnt to give her fellow soldiers when she sees him watching, the look that tends to quiet even the most seasoned soldiers mid-sentence, and Lando reacts more or less the same, his mouth quirked in a half-laugh grin as he shakes his head and looks away, stretching his legs out into the emptiness where Luke once sat beside them.

“Cute kid,” he says, after a moment. “I can see why Han likes him.”

Sadness slips across her heart like a frost, Han’s absence open like a wound, worse every day. “He’s a good man.”

Lando nods, drawing mindless patterns on the rough tabletop with the tip of his finger. “He is,” he says. “Hope he can stay that way. The business we’ve got ourselves in here tends to turn people sour in a hurry.”

He’s right and Leia hates it, hates being confronted so plainly with the suffering and fear and danger she read about during her studies as a child, a teenager. She hates the poverty she can feel breathing in the hot sands around them, the fear underlining Lando’s voice whenever he says the words _Jabba_ or _Hutts._ Hates the tension in Luke’s posture, the cold façade he’s worn since they came out of lightspeed and started their descent to his homeworld, the reluctance she can’t understand, jealousy welling up in response to the pleasure Luke doesn’t take in simply being _able_ to come home.

She steps outside into the heat pulsing like a living thing, bearable now that the second sun has begun to set but still impressive and oppressive, pushing at her body with more force than the scant breeze carries, the arid breath of evening leeching the sweat from her skin, leaving her feeling sticky and filthy, as if splattered with engine oil. It’s better than waiting indoors, though, the sight of Lando more than she can cope with for long periods, still, despite his efforts to rescue her, to rescue Luke. She circles the little clay hut and tries desperately not to think of Han’s face, haunted with deep, visceral fear as he was lowered into the carbon pit, tries to think of anything but the echo of his scream tearing through her soul. Of the awful, interminable silence as they waited for Lando to check him, to confirm that he had survived. The wave of nausea she felt when relief sputtered and died in her throat, replaced with thoughts of Han trapped in solid metal, alive and possibly conscious, suffering. It leaves her dizzy even now, the clay outer wall of the hut rough through her uniform as she sinks down to catch her breath, her arms wrapped around her middle. She closes her eyes to the shadows stretching like scars across the endless sand around her and recites the prayers her mother and father taught her when she was a little girl, too young to read from the book of prayers kept by each bedside in their home. Centers herself around the words, the transportive comfort of them taking her spirit to a different time, a safer place. A warmth less harsh and penetrating than the sting of heat bleeding from the sand into her feet, even through the thick leather of her boots.

She hears the buzz of Luke’s ‘speeder and stands, brushing sand from her clothes, not wanting him to see her as anything but strong, but he’s worried when he jumps down from the ‘speeder and comes over to her, asks straight away if she’s all right, if she’s been out in the heat too long. She assures him that she’s fine but he doesn’t believe her, his bionic hand firm on her forearm as he leads her back into the hut and guides her to one of the chairs by the table, fills her mug with the water left in the jug. He doesn’t recite the poem, this time, but he stands and watches her while she drinks, offers her a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes when she finishes the water and sets the mug down on the table.

“I spoke with some of the men in town,” he says, after he’s gone out to the ‘speeder and returned, a burlap sack slung over his back, making his gait awkward until he’s set it down. “Jabba is always looking for trained fighters to serve as guards, but he does extensive background checks, has eyes and ears everywhere in the Outer Rim, so we’ll need to be careful in our approach. There’s no talk of Han, but plenty about others who worked for Jabba and crossed him, so I doubt there will be too much attention paid to Han specifically, wherever Jabba’s keeping him. There’s a group coming in for a visit in three cycle-sets, spice dealers most likely. Should be a good opportunity for us to infiltrate, then, as he’ll be strengthening his guard in advance of their arrival.”

He empties the contents of the sack one-by-one onto the table as he speaks, folded garments and rolled parchment and bits of electronics, an intimidating helmet decorated with sharp, curled fangs mixed in among domestic items, tinned rations and bundles of herbs, a small earthenware kettle with an iron handle, not unlike the one Leia saw Luke sweeping up, broken on the hut floor.

“I had to borrow money from Chewbacca,” he says softly, once the sack is empty, the table fully obscured under the items he’s brought back with him. “I kept track of how much, though.”

“Sands in the desert,” Lando says with a wave of his hand. He reaches for the helmet, considering it with his eyes narrowed. “You did well.”

Luke drops his gaze, looking pleased, fumbling a little as he reaches for the stack of folded garments. “This goes with the mask,” he says, pulling out what looks like trousers and a jacket, dyed deep black. “I guessed at your size. They may be a little large.”

Lando takes them, shrugging out of his shirt without hesitation, the scent of his cologne carried on the air whispering in currents around his movements, making Leia’s heart beat a little faster. She’s seen men topless before, a loss of decorum unavoidable on Rebel bases, surrounded by soldiers and pilots and engineers and officers all living in close proximity, but it’s different, somehow, when it’s just the three of them, different when there’s nowhere else for her to look without being obvious in her discomfort. So she watches, careful to keep her face impassive as Lando pulls on the jacket, grinning when Luke has to step forward and show him which buttons go where, how to secure the ties on the sides, the sash around the upper waist. She _does_ look away when he shucks his trousers down his legs, waiting until she sees Luke in her peripheral vision before she turns, Lando covered once again, grinning openly at her as Luke shows him how to tie the trousers on, how to secure the cloth belt.

“And here my associates used to tease me for the complexity of _my_ fashion choices,” he says. “Much less for much more, I say. What do you think, Leia? Do the fashions of Tatooine suit me?”

They do, without question, the dull black linen striking against the warm brown of Lando’s skin, the loose material of the trousers highlighting the fluidity of his motions, the tunic showing off the broadness of his shoulders, the sash emphasizing the slenderness of his waist. She nods her approval, biting at the inside of her lip as he tries on the helmet, looking around the hut with exaggerated motions before coming to attention, his back perfectly straight, chin just slightly raised.

“Peripheral vision’s a little limited, but it’s not the worst I’ve had,” he says, taking the helmet off again and placing it on the table. “Just need a weapon now, and I’ll be set.”

“I bought a lancer’s spear,” Luke says. “It’s in the hold outside.”

Lando snaps his fingers “Right,” he says. He winks at Leia, reaching out to rest his palm atop the smooth dome of the helmet. “I’ll be off to look for a job, then.”

“No,” Luke says, immediately, “wait until late midday.” He looks from Lando to Leia, then back again, something like fear in his eyes. “If you go now, they’ll delay you until morning, and it won’t be safe for you to leave for several hours after.” He shrugs. “It’s a common intimidation tactic here.”

“I’ll remember that,” Lando says, slowly, sinking back down into his chair. “Thank you.”

Luke dips his head in a nod. He reaches for the stack of folded garments once again, holds out three to Leia. “I got these for you,” he says. “I think they’re your size.”

It’s a dress and a robe, both loose and soft, heavier than the material Leia’s used to wearing, but not uncomfortable, and easy enough to put on, nothing like the ceremonial robes she wore in Coruscant as a teenager that required no fewer than four handmaidens to assemble, heavy and awkward on her body like the works of art they were intended to be. She knots the simple belt Luke handed her with them around her waist and, in a moment of childish playfulness, spins once, just to see the grey linen of the dress flutter around her legs, the lavender robe moving like water in the dry air around her.

“I think they fit just fine,” she says, pushing aside the curtain dividing the room and stepping out.

“More than fine, I’d say,” Lando says, giving her the sort of grin that makes her homesick for Han and his constant cheap flirting.

Luke doesn’t say anything, but he does nod, hesitating only a second before coming over to retie the belt, murmuring an apology for not showing her how to tie it, before. He ties and unties it twice, looks down at the loose ends like they’re intentionally making a fool of him, then darts a shy look at Leia before moving around behind her, reaching around her waist to tie the belt from the angle he’s used to tying it, his hands moving on memory, quick and fluid.

“It’s been a while,” he says, apologetic as he steps around to face her once again, his head bowed. “I’d forgotten how it works, exactly.”

Leia slips her hand under the simple braided knot he’s wound for her, considering it, then offers him a smile. “It’s fine,” she says. “Beautiful.”

Luke brightens visibly at her praise, the earnest, sweet smile she loves and has seen so rarely since Hoth warm on his face as he turns to clear away the rest of his purchases from the table, the hut coming to life as he fills it with the simple effects of domesticity, the kettle on the small stove and a pitcher of water by the table, bigger than the pitcher he had upon their first arrival, and prettier, decorated with a simple pattern etched into the clay. He pours a thick blue drink for each of them to go with the tinned rations they eat for dinner and drinks it like it’s nothing special, but to Leia’s tongue it’s thick and salty, heavy with a bitter undertone that reminds her of sweat. She employs the lessons drilled into her on Alderaan her final cycle before leaving for Coruscant, strategies taught to all royalty and politicians for ingesting unpleasant dishes without giving offense to one’s host, which means her mug and plate are both empty just as Luke and Lando are finishing their meals, Lando leaving the table long enough to dig a flask out of the jacket he shed earlier, his satisfied sigh after he’s taken a healthy swig giving Leia the suspicion that he liked the blue drink as little as she did.

“Ahh Tatooine,” he says, nudging his mug with the tip of his pinky. “You’re from here, you said, Luke?”

Luke nods.

“City or outlands?”

“Outlands,” Luke says. “My uncle was a moisture farmer.”

Lando whistles. “Hard way to make a living.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Luke says. It sounds like a lie.

Leia helps him clear the table, curls of awkwardness bringing warmth to her cheeks as she then has to stand by and let him show her how to wash them, the planet’s lack of clean water as foreign to her as the clothes she wears. He’s patient with her as he shows her how to clear the plates, how to wash them. She kisses him on the cheek in thanks when they’ve finished, and he blushes, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

Lando’s tucking his flask into the wide sash of the outfit Luke got him when Leia turns, the dishes cleaned and returned to the cupboard on the wall, Luke covering a yawn with his hand. “Give me a lift out to the _Falcon_ before you clock out for the night,” Lando says, standing and knocking the back of his hand against Luke’s shoulder. “I’ll bring Chewbacca up to speed, spend the night in the captain’s quarters. My old quarters anyway, Han’s just been borrowing them. Hope he hasn’t done anything to ruin the décor.”

It’s a joke — Leia’s seen Han’s quarters, the walls bare but for the scar of a blaster shot in one corner, a smattering of tools kept in a box under the table at the center of the room — but it doesn’t make her laugh, the realization that there’s only one bed in their little hideout and two of them left to share it sinking in like the pull of gravity on Raskas, greater than the gravitational pull on Alderaan. She considers offering to go with Lando, to sleep aboard the _Falcon,_ but that option is no less inappropriate than remaining with Luke would be; perhaps even moreso, given Lando’s tendency to flirt with her, regardless of those around them. So she keeps her mouth shut, sitting in silence at the table after Luke and Lando have gone, the buzz of the ‘speeder swallowed in the silence of sand and wind wrapped around thick clay and wood.

She’s shared a bed with schoolmates, before, with a few friends on Coruscant during her final cycle there, one or two of them identifying as her gendered opposite. Always as friends, as confidants whispering under the blankets after being told to go to sleep, sharing stories and secrets and gossip, the lifeblood of young alliances. The thought of sharing a bed with Luke is no different, she tells herself as she imagines it, almost a comfort to be craved, his shyness to her touch lessened over the years they’ve lived and fought and survived together, his lack of initiative after her kiss on Hoth a clear message she’s relieved to have gotten, regret and embarrassment a thick underline to the memory of grabbing Luke on impulse, in anger, and kissing him, more of her attention focused on Han than on the sweet young man she’d kissed.

She wonders, as she rises and pokes aimlessly through the old books she and Luke tidied away if that was Luke’s first kiss. Has to close her eyes against the shame that wells up in her at the thought of it being so. The notion that it very likely was, given his age, his sheltered, naïve affect.

She’s tempted to apologize to him when she hears the ‘speeder returning but doesn’t get the chance, Luke coming inside alone and reporting that Chewbacca had gathered some intel about Jabba, listening in on channels not secured well enough to avoid his skills at eavesdropping.

“Jabba’s in poor health lately,” he says, pouring himself a mug of the thick blue drink and draining it, licking his lips afterwards, “and like any crime lord, he’s fighting it by indulging in all the things he enjoys. It should give us an opening, if we can come up with something to offer him.”

“Like what?” Leia says.

Luke shrugs. “I’m good on a ‘speeder, so racing isn’t out of the question,” he says, “though Lando says the Hutts stopped patronizing racing a while ago, so there may not be an opportunity. I could use the Force, too, if we need an in, but I’d rather not. Not if I can help it.”

Leia nods, the wrongness of using Luke’s faith as a cheap carnival trick making her skin crawl. “We’ll figure something out,” she says.

“Lando said he’d let us know if he hears anything about Jabba’s preferences or any weaknesses presented by his illnesses.” Another shrug. “We’ll have to wait, see what we can do with the information we get.”

He’s right, a fact that she can tell sits as ill with him as it does with her, the discomfort of it hanging between them like the lingering heat from the day trapped inside the hut. Luke changes the subject abruptly, offering to show her the sonic shower, an ancient thing tucked into the back corner of the hut in what she had assumed was little more than a closet, leaves her to her thoughts once she’s emerged, skin tingling as it does after a non-water shower, to go through his own preparations for bed. When he emerges, yawning once more behind his hand, she wraps her hand around his and pulls him towards the curtain dividing the room, over to the bed, tension snapping through him like an electrical current when he realizes her aim.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he says.

Leia rolls her eyes. “You’ll need your full mental acuity if you’re going up against a Hutt,” she says, “and you won’t have that if you’re tired. Either we share, or I take the floor.” It’s a dirty trick, more than a little underhanded, but she cares not, crossing her arms over her chest as she watches Luke think it over, clearly uncomfortable. She brushes the back of her hand against his elbow, just gently, just enough to get his attention. “I promise I won’t do anything inappropriate to you while you’re sleeping.”

“I’m not — I didn’t think you would,” he says.

“Thank you,” she says. “I’m glad you trust me.”

Another underhanded trick, an application of her negotiation lessons she’s fairly certain her teachers never intended for their recitations and exercises, but it’s means to an end, gets Luke to pull back the cover on the bed for her once she’s shrugged off the robe and unknotted the belt, leaving her in nothing but the loose dress, Luke positively shy as he slips off his tunic and switches off the glowbulb in the corner, plunging the room into darkness that affords him some privacy as he climbs into bed beside her and lies down, breathing out on a sigh that speaks to too many emotions for Leia to count.

Sleep takes her quickly and fully once Luke has settled into stillness at her side, the absence of the memory of falling asleep after she lay down on the surprisingly comfortable mattress adding to the jolt of terror that rips her into wakefulness, some hours later, the electric threads of fear winding through her, alighting the adrenaline singing through her system on the wings of nightmare. She cries out when Luke touches her, reality pitching and yawing around her like waves thick as blood for the muted heartbeats it takes him to switch on the ‘bulb in the corner, saying her name in a quiet tone laced thick with worry and rough with sleep.

“Nightmare?” he says when she breathes an apology, pulling her knees up to her chest, his hand tentative and gentle when he settles on the edge of the bed and touches her back. She nods in answer, breathing through the memory, struggling to focus on the stale air dry in her throat, the strength of the bionic hand pressed against her back, all at once the same as and different from the brutal strength of Vader’s bionic hand tight around her shoulder, his breath loud echoes in the cavernous darkness flooded with brightness blinding her as they murdered her people, her entire world gone, _gone_ with her watching, gone because of her, because of _her,_ because she refused to tell, wouldn’t bend to the pain and nausea and fear of torture, trapped breathless in a stinking, cold cell, alone in the vast darkness of the universe, an orphan with no home left, no rescue coming —

Luke keeps his hand on her as she breaks down and cries, awkward but earnest in trying to offer her comfort, his arms strong around her when she turns to embrace him, needing closeness and contact more than her pride needs to be upheld. She sobs until she can’t breathe through it, cries weakly after that while Luke touches her hair, and where the release of feeling is painful, her face and chest aching with it, it’s also cleansing, leaving her congested but lighter than she’s felt in years, the air she draws on shaking breaths somehow sweet when Luke releases her to fetch a tissue square from the main living area, the thin paper rough against her skin as she blows her nose, a mild headache settling between her eyes by the time she can breathe properly again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as he crosses the room to switch off the light once again. “I’m not usually like this.”

“I don’t mind,” he says, simply.

She props her pillow against the headboard of the bed when lying down proves to be a mistake, her sinuses filling immediately with the remnants of her upset, suffocating her. She glances at Luke once her eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom, takes in the curve of his shoulder, the twist of muscle in his arms she doesn’t remember him having, before. No longer the weedy kid barely capable of taking care of himself, let alone rescuing her, following Han around like a puppy. Not quite a man grown, but closer to it than he was, closer than the scant years they’ve known each other could be credited.

“How old are you, Luke?” she says into the darkness, curiosity winning out over manners, her ability to filter and think before speaking eroded into dust.

“Twenty-one,” Luke says, no hint of sleep in his voice.

Her own age; a surprise. “I thought you were younger.”

“I get that a lot.”

“Mmm.”

Luke shifts beside her, turning to lie on his side, facing her. “How old are you?”

“The same. Twenty-one.”

A moment. “I thought you were older.”

Leia smiles in the darkness. “I get that a lot, too.”

“You know so much,” Luke says, “and you’ve done so much.” He looks up at her, blonde hair scrubbing against his pillow. “It’s impressive.” _And intimidating_ he doesn’t say, but she hears it, all the same, feels it like a skipped beat in her pulse.

“I only know what my teachers taught me,” she says, offered like a reassurance, “what they thought would be of value.” She turns to lie on her side, facing him, props her chin in her hand, her elbow sinking into the soft caress of her pillow. “I’d be at a complete loss here on Tatooine without you. And I’d studied it, I thought I knew all about your homeworld.”

Luke huffs a laugh. “Lando knows his way around,” he says. “He’s done business here before. He said he knew my uncle, met him once on a supply run. Back when he was still captain of the _Falcon._ He would’ve helped you.”

“I would never trade second-hand knowledge for first-hand experience,” Leia says, falling back into a comfortable sprawl, her eyes playing tricks on her, showing her patterns and shapes moving in the shadows stretched motionless across the ceiling. Silence stretches between them, comfortable but tight with wakefulness, the threads of nightmare coming into focus each time she dares to close her eyes, bright when she starts to slip into the ease of rest. “Tell me about your home, here,” she says when a half-dream twists her stomach into her throat, the memory of tears and anguish threatening to reassert themselves. “About growing up on Tatooine.”

Luke is silent for a moment, drawing a slow breath before he speaks. “All right,” he says, slowly. “Anything in particular you want to know?”

“No. Just anything. Normal things.”

“Okay.”

He tells her about his uncle’s farm, a collection of huts like the one in which she lies with him, connected each to the other with passages buried deep in the sand, built of thick clay as well to keep out the heat, to preserve them from burrowing creatures seeking the cool depths away from the burning heat of the suns. He tells her about the courtyard in the middle, the warmth radiating from its tiles after the first sun had set each evening, the long twilights he spent playing in the shadows while his aunt prepared meals, all of them spicy and rich, palatable only with the thick bantha milk served with them to cool his mouth. He tells her about learning to maintain all of the equipment needed to draw moisture from the ground and the air, learning to translate what his uncle taught him into knowledge needed for maintaining his ‘speeder, making it the best in his neighborhood. He tells her about his childhood friends, about Biggs and Biggs’ whiny cousin Gavin, about racing with them through the canyons, making up stories about space pirates and spice traders and raising an army to overthrow the Hutts, about arguments that never blossomed into more than loud posturing over who would rise to power to replace the corrupt overlords about whom they knew little more than what they’d overheard from the adults in their households. Tells her about his childish ideals and governing strategies, his plans for making his homeworld a better place. Safer for people like Biggs, like Luke’s own beloved aunt and uncle.

He talks until his words slur, his voice hoarse. Leia feigns sleep when she hears him turn to look at her, mulling his words in her memory when he quiets and drops off to sleep beside her, his mouth open in a quiet snore.

———

They’ve been on Tatooine nineteen days when her blood comes, her back and legs aching with it, the heat making her dizzy even in the early light of day when Luke takes her to the _Falcon_ as he’s done each morning for her previous eighteen days. She spends the long hours of scorching sun sheltered in the controlled cool of the ship with Chewbacca, listening in on Imperial chatter and sending heavily coded messages back to the Rebellion, advising them of shipments and attack plans and movement of battalions almost as fast as the information reaches her, worry sitting like a knot in her throat as she waits for updates to come in, quick and factual. Chewbacca worries over her normally, paternal and kind in a way that surprised her at first, and his concern is tripled, at least, when he smells the blood, her Shyriiwook weak enough that he has to repeat himself twice before she figures out what he’s saying and reassures him that she isn’t injured, that he needn’t worry. He gives her a dubious look and woofs at her to let him know if she needs anything, but otherwise lets it drop, demonstrating surprising discretion when Luke comes to bring her back that evening to what she’s just begun to think of as _home,_ growling at Luke to take it easy on the ‘speeder on the way back. He gives Leia a gentle nudge, almost a caress, when she walks past him, following Luke down the gangplank, and the gesture warms her heart, makes her smile.

“Are you sick?” Luke wants to know, the rush of wind quieter around them as he does as Chewbacca told him to and goes more slowly than usual.

Leia shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she says.

She can feel Luke watching her when they return to the hut, though, pointedly returns his gaze when she settles down to dinner with him and finds him staring at her, his trademark curiosity plain in his bright blue eyes. He doesn’t look away, looking at her directly without blinking for a long breath, blinking only when she looks away from him, eager to eat her meal and lie down.

“You’re pale,” he says before she’s managed to swallow the first bite.

“I’m _fine,”_ she repeats.

“Is it your mid-cycle?” he wants to know after another moment of staring, his bluntness sharp like the pain nagging in her belly. She offers him the sort of glare that used to get her grounded whenever she’d turn it on one of her parents, but Luke takes it in stride, blinking only once as she glares at him, his head cocked to the side like a confused mooka, clearly waiting for her to answer his question.

“Yes, if you must know,” she says on a sigh, looking back at her plate, away from the intensity of Luke’s scrutiny.

Luke pushes his chair back immediately with a loud scrape, startling her. “You should have said,” he says, his back to her as he pulls a bundle of herbs from one of the drawers by the stove. He wraps them in a thick cloth and ties the ends, then sets the bundle in one of the low, thick pans hanging on the wall, what Leia had assumed before were decorative, lighting a low flame under the pan. He turns the bundle every few seconds, using his bionic hand to do so, then extinguishes the flame and lifts the bundle from the pan, holding it out to her with both hands.

Leia looks from him to the bundle and back again. “What —“

“It’s for your back,” Luke says. “Or in front. Wherever it hurts.” He pushes the bundle closer to her, clearly pleased when she takes it and slips it between the back of her chair and the small of her back, watching her as he settles back into his own chair, his gaze direct and unnerving once again.

She can’t be bothered to fuss at him for it, though, too focused on the pain lessening with notable alacrity from her lower back, the heat from the cloth seeping through the linens of her dress and robe, the scent of the herbs rising around her like steam from a bath. She shifts and the ache reasserts itself just for a second before the heat warms into it, easing the tensed muscle. Making her feel as if she’s flushed all over and floating; a good feeling.

“This is wonderful,” she breathes when the sound of Luke moving, going back to his meal, brings her back to reality, reminds her of her manners. “Thank you, Luke.”

He’s paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, staring at her, when she looks at him. “You don’t have yrtti-wrap on Alderaan?”

Leia shakes her head, a slow, lazy motion that feels almost like she’s moving through water, the heat of the wrap easing up her spine like the soothing touch of her mother’s hand, helping her fall asleep after a nightmare. “No. We take medicine if the pain is severe, but usually it’s just something to endure quietly.” She breathes a soft laugh at the look on Luke’s face, his nose wrinkled and lips pursed in mild upset, making him look younger than he is. “It’s not a topic openly discussed or addressed, where I’m from. We see it as an unnecessary reminder of the difference between men and women, a distraction from equality. It’s something of a taboo to discuss it at all among women, and it’s never discussed in the presence of men.”

“Oh. It’s revered here,” Luke tells her. “A man’s sacred duty, to care for his mother, wife, sister, and daughter during the Season of Life.”

“The Season of Life,” Leia echoes. “That’s a pretty way to put it.”

“My uncle taught me how to prepare yrtti-wrap when I was little,” Luke says, the irony in Leia’s words clearly sailing over his pretty blonde head. “I’d warm it whenever he was out and my aunt needed it. I got the herbs when we first arrived because I knew you’d need them eventually. I didn’t think you’d not tell me when you did.”

Leia tries to imagine her father —warm eyes and stately demeanor, a gentleman before all else — knowing about her blood, caring for her during the worst of it, talking about it openly with her over the dinner-table, and fails miserably, embarrassment and rejection twining together and drawing laughter from her belly to bubble up her throat, almost hysterical. She shakes her head when Luke wants to know what’s funny, reaches across the table to squeeze his hand when she sees hurt in his eyes, his misinterpretation of her mirth as a slight against his culture.

“I was thinking how lucky the women of Tatooine are, to have men like you,” she says.

Luke blushes and goes back to his dinner, pausing only to take the wrap from her and warm it without needing to be asked, watching her arrange it against her belly when he returns it to her, a look of satisfaction on his face. He warms it again for her before they go to bed, offers to sleep in the floor so she can have the full bed. Hesitates when she tells him he’s being ridiculous and orders him into the bed.

“I don’t mind,” he says. “It’s just a few nights.”

“It’s unnecessary,” she tells him, “and we both need to be rested in case Lando contacts us.”

She can practically _see_ the wheels turning in Luke’s head, his apparent reverence for her at odds with disobeying a direct order at odds with the loyalty he has to their cause, to Han. He climbs into bed beside her and occupies as little of the mattress as he can, his body scrunched up small on itself, ridiculous. Leia curls up on her side, facing away from him, the wrap tucked tight against her belly, and reaches behind herself, groping blindly for Luke’s arm, tugging at it until he figures out what she wants and rolls onto his side, his body not quite curled around hers, but much more stably arranged on the mattress behind her.

“Talk to me,” she says, when sleep doesn’t come quickly, Luke’s unnatural stillness behind her telltale of his wakefulness mirroring her own. “Tell me a story.”

A ritual they’ve fallen into most nights in their shared bed, whenever nightmares or sleeplessness prevail. Behind her, Luke draws a slow breath, exhaling on a sigh that makes her hair flutter where some of it has escaped her braid. “Have I told you about Old Ben?” he wants to know.

Leia shakes her head. “You haven’t.”

“You knew him, didn’t you?”

“No. He knew my father. I never met him.”

“Oh.” Behind her, Luke shifts to lie on his back, close enough that she can feel his shoulder, warm against the curve of her spine. “We used to make up stories about him when I was a kid,” he says, slow like he’s not certain where to start his story that night. “Not because we were mean, but he was strange, and our parents told us not to bother him, to leave him alone out here. That’s how it’s done in town, you don’t see people interacting unless it’s business, but out here, in the outlands, it’s different. Interaction’s important, since it’s dangerous out here. We guessed that there was a reason he kept to himself, but no one ever told us what it was, so we made up our own reasons, our own history for him.” He breathes a quiet laugh into the darkness. “They usually made me play Ben when we made up stories about him. My eyes were the same color as his, and my hair was the lightest, so I was the best fit.”

Against her pillow, Leia smiles, her imagination rich with the image of Luke, skinny and blonde and energetic, darting around the glowing dunes with his friends, waving a make-believe lightsaber and yelling about the Force. “Sounds like fun,” she says.

Luke hums softly. “He was so _different_ from what I thought he was, when I finally spent time with him,” he says. “In our stories, he was always a criminal of some sort, hiding from Imperial Forces, too old to be part of the Hutts’ operations. I kind of thought they were true, in part — he _seemed_ like a spicer, to me, I guess. Then one day he saved me and I sat and talked to him and I realized that he wasn’t like I’d thought he was. At all.”

“He saved you?”

“Mm. I’d lost Artoo — well, he’d run away, really, but he was only able to because I took off his limiter, so it was my fault — and we’d tracked him into the Jundland Wastes, got attacked. Me and Threepio. Ben spotted us and —“

He stops himself on a sharp intake of breath, lets it out on a murmured chuckle when Leia says his name like a question. “He knew,” he says. “I thought it was strange that he’d be out in the canyon where we were attacked, that he just _happened_ to be there to rescue us, but it wasn’t an accident: he _knew._ He could sense it in the Force, I’m sure of it. Why I didn’t realize before —”

“You know more now than you did then,” Leia says, gently.

“I guess,” Luke says. “I’d never heard of the Force, before, My aunt and uncle called it something different, said it was a remnant of evolution, a base, animal instinct that reduced our humanity if we trusted it too much. Ben told me the truth about it, about a lot of things. He showed me how to channel it, to use it to heighten my senses.” He snorts softly. “Han couldn’t stand it, our training sessions on the _Falcon._ Said it was all made up.”

Leia rolls her eyes. “I think it intimidates him because it’s something he can’t understand. Makes him feel like he’s not in control.”

“Maybe. He hung around a lot when I was training. Ben didn’t like him very much.”

“He’s an acquired taste.”

Luke laughs. He’s quiet for a long moment after, long enough that Leia’s starting to slip into sleep when he moves, reaching over her to pull the herb wrap away where she’d had it tucked against her belly. “I’ll warm this for you,” he says when she stirs. “It’ll help you sleep.”

“Thank you.”

He kisses her on the cheek before he goes, little more than a light press of his lips against her skin, but it brings her fully awake, her heart knocking a single syncopation against her ribs as he walks away, the scrape of iron on iron and hiss of flame marking the minutes she has to regain the sleepy calm of their bedtime ritual. She can smell the herbs before Luke pushes past the dividing curtain, her skin prickling in anticipation of the warmth of the wrap, the warmth of Luke beside her, his bare chest and thin linen pants somehow intimate, almost awkward, as he leans over her body, no shyness in tucking the wrap against her belly, his fingers brushing hers as she helps him press the warmth where she needs it, heat spreading through her body immediately as he lies down beside her once again.

———

Lando is injured when he comes to see them two months later, blood clotted in the ripped linen of his outfit, his steps unsteady as he climbs down from the rusted, coughing skyhopper they could hear crossing the dunes a solid ten minutes before it was visible from their hut. He stumbles over the threshold of the doorway, groaning when Leia catches him, her hands slick with his blood as she helps him into one of the chairs at the table. Sucks in a hissing breath when Luke comes over and works on pulling off the armor plating wrapped around his body, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor, worry that mirrors Leia’s coming off of him like midday heat.

“It’s not — as bad — as it looks,” Lando says through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as Luke helps him pull his tunic over his head, revealing an ugly gash striped across his ribs, nearly to his belly, cuts that look like claw-marks marring his shoulder. “I had — an argument with — one of the other soldiers. Nothing serious.”

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Luke tells him, yanking open one of the cupboards by the stove and pulling out a first aid kit Leia recognizes as one of the _Falcon’s,_ the stringent smell of disinfectant mixing with the bitter stench of blood as he rips open a surgi-prep pad and begins dabbing at Lando’s wounds. “What kind of weapon did he use?”

Lando treats Leia to a version of his usual grin so weak that her stomach twists with renewed worry at the sight of it. _“She_ had a long spear,” he says, looking up at Luke, then down to where Luke’s tending to his wounds. “Nothing — poisoned. I wouldn’t have — made it out here, if it — had been.”

“How long?” Leia asks, stepping around to Luke’s other side, waving his hands away from the contents of the first aid kit, pulling out a bacta gel tube for him and strips of gauze, saving the contents of the kit from the smear of Lando’s blood drying tacky and dark against Luke’s skin.

“An hour and a half, maybe a — little longer,” Lando says. “They wanted to — god _dammit_ Luke, that _hurts_ — celebrate my victory — before I could go.”

“They were trying to kill you,” Luke says, his voice low and thick with a mix of anger and fear, dark and hateful.

“Figured,” Lando says. He arches his back as Luke presses the gauze over the thick line of bacta, sealing it over the gash, hissing through his teeth at the pressure. “I’m harder to — kill than that, though.”

“Barely,” Luke tells him, turning his attention to the scratches on Lando’s shoulder.

Lando tips his head back, his eyes closed. “C’mon, give me a — little more credit — than that.”

“These look bad,” Luke says. “Looks like a sandcat.”

“Just the claws.”

Luke whips his head around, his body tensing in deathly stillness. “White or pink?”

“Pink. Relax. I told you. Not poisoned.”

Luke sets his mouth in a thin line, silent as he goes back to work cleaning and patching the scratches, unaffected by Lando’s noises of discomfort. He cleans his hands once he’s finished and opens a tin of rations, serving it to Lando with a cup of bantha milk and a generous dose of painkillers, ignoring Lando’s thanks in favor of thanking Leia for tidying away the first aid kit, tension rich in the air as he settles at the table, then stands not five seconds later, pouring Lando a mug of water like an afterthought, his voice low and distant as he recites the poem from their first day.

“Blessing,” Lando says, wincing a little as he reaches for the mug, sighing as Leia takes pity on him and nudges it closer, within easy reach. “I have information that may be of use. No clear plan, though. Security’s tighter every day, now that Jabba’s health is failing.”

“We should move fast, then,” Luke says. “No sense in delaying. It’s been too long already.”

Almost four months planetside, five since Han’s imprisonment. Leia swallows around the thickness gathering in her throat, drawing breath through her nose, a centering technique her mother taught her when she was very young and prone to fighting with the other children in her lessons. There is no conscious thought or physical suffering associated with carbon freeze, so far as her research revealed. Plenty of risk for reversing the process, from memory loss to blindness to paralysis, hemorrhage and organ failure and stroke rarer but not unheard-of. Worry solves none of the side-effects, but it claws at her anyway, her heart heavy with the memory of Han’s big brown eyes, full of fear as he was lowered into the pit, memory of his tenderness, kissing her on the forehead, touching her cheek before kissing her on the lips. She straightens her posture into that of a senator, a diplomat, the tension in her back and abdomen giving her focus and center. Walks through the recitations she was taught in her first cycle on Coruscant, poems written and taught expressly for those whose lives and livelihood put them at risk of capture and torture, prepared them to resist the weakness and temptation of relief.

They revisit the plan they structured in their first hours together on Tatooine, quiet in the warm artificial light of the first home she’s known since the death of Alderaan, the smell of blood and bacta sour in Leia’s nose as they agree on the best course of action available to them, calculated risks dwarfed by deadly alternatives, steep still in the worry washing through all of them, heady and tangible against Leia’s skin.

She steeps in the fear of it as she clears away Lando’s plate and mugs, alone as Luke accompanies Lando to the edge of town where Lando will rent a room for a few days, the time needed for him to recover from his wounds factored in as the first step in their plan, her stomach knotted with what-ifs and rejection of risk and desperation to find another way by the time Luke returns to her, dust-dulled and weary. He tenses when she curls her body against his side in their shared bed, his skin warm still from the sonic shower, strong muscles of his shoulder tensing and shifting under her cheek. As if he doesn’t know how to cuddle, their position as foreign to him as so many of the customs of his homeworld have been to Leia.

“I’m afraid,” she tells him, safe in the darkness to confess her thoughts. “I don’t like our plan.”

“It’ll work,” he says. “We’ve survived worse.”

She thinks of their escape from the _Death Star,_ the suicide mission on Yavin 4. Thinks of Hoth, memory twisting in her like a knife of Han returning to base, wind-burned and stumbling like a drunk, snarling as he helped the pilots pull Luke down from the ‘speeder, Luke’s body limp and frostbitten, savage wounds torn across his face, his lips chapped and slack, blue with cold.

“I worry that our luck will run out,” she says.

“No such thing as luck,” Luke says, his voice warm in the darkness. “Ben told Han that after we’d escaped from here, Imperials on our tail.” He reaches across his own body, fumbling blindly for her arm and giving it a squeeze. “We’ll be all right, Leia. You’ll see.”

She presses a kiss to his ribs, his skin warm and soft under her lips. “I hope so.”

———

They are and they aren’t when the time comes, their plan failing and succeeding in turns like the ebb and flow of the ocean, fear rich like the sand kicking up around them as they make their final escape from the literal jaws of death, Leia looking back only long enough to squint against the bright heat of the explosion dedicating Jabba’s palace to little more than scant memory in the endless stretches of desert, the hot air of midday burning at her skin until Luke drapes a jacket over her, his hands lingering long enough for her to lean into him, his closeness welcome after her imprisonment, after days of unwanted touches she feels will never wash from her skin.

He leaves them as soon as they’re safe in the shadow of the _Falcon’s_ bulk, kissing her cheek before he goes, his absence like a physical thing to her as she lies in her bunk, hours later. She finds Han awake in the galley when she gives up on sleeping and seeks the openness of the common area, her quarters stifling and claustrophobic by comparison. He’s been drinking, the sharp smell of whiskey surrounding him, the glass in his hand empty but for the thinnest line of amber at the bottom.

“How are you feeling?” she says, taking a seat beside him, the same seat she took years before when she found Luke seated at the same table, curled in on himself and trying not to cry over the death of the man she had assumed was his father or grandfather, not a stranger from the stories of his childhood.

“Like hell on enhancers, sweetheart,” Han says. “Vision’s still shit, too, or else you’re actually lookin’ at me with pity. Dunno which of those would be worse.”

“It isn’t pity,” she says.

“Option A, then.”

His humor is weak but it brings a smile to her face anyway. She reaches across the table and rests her hand on his forearm, feeling the shift of muscles and tendons under her fingertips, Han’s skin rougher than Luke’s, not quite as warm. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Good to be back, I think,” Han says. “Lando said it wasn’t too long I was out, Chewie says I was gone forever. Neither of ‘em will tell me actual dates, and I can’t see well enough to check for m’self. Hell, I don’t even remember when I went under, so not like I could do the math even if I knew.” He squints at Leia. “Think I might be losin’ it.”

“Hibernation sickness takes time to wear off,” she tells him.

“Yeah that’s what they tell me,” Han grumbles. “So. You gonna tell me how long I was out?”

It’s been five months, three weeks, and eleven days. Closer to seven months on the Tatooine calendar, just shy of five on the Corellian calendar. “About six months,” Leia tells him gently.

Han’s eyes go wide, his usual sabacc-face failing him. “Well that’s better’n what Chewie had me thinkin’,” he says, after a moment. “What took y’so long?”

“It wasn’t simple, you know,” she says, her temper curling like heat at the base of her spine, threatening to climb. “We had to be cautious. Jabba was dying, but he was still a Hutt. Still very powerful, very dangerous.” She pulls her hand away from Han’s arm and presses her fingertips together, a centering technique she’s relied on for years to save her from her own temper. “We did our best.”

“Yeah. Did pretty well, at that,” Han says, like a concession. He picks up his glass, tips it so that the final drops of alcohol slide forward, onto his tongue. “Must’a been nice, though,” he says, licking his lips, “for you. All that time alone with Luke.”

Loneliness tempers the anger that sparks through Leia’s system, hot under her skin. “He certainly has more manners than you do,” she spits, pushing herself to her feet.

“Leia, wait,” Han calls as she storms from the room, but she doesn’t turn, her throat aching with tears she absolutely does not want him to see her shed as she returns to her quarters. She curls up on her side in her bunk and lets the hurt come, wishing she had Luke with her to hold her and comfort her, to tell stories in the dark until the blessing of sleep takes her.

 _I miss you,_ she thinks, pushing the hurt and loneliness and anger and memories she doesn’t dare think about too closely out and away from herself as hard as she can, as if they were physical objects she could shove out of her space, into the corridors beyond the thick duraplast door of her bunk. _I miss you so much, Luke. I wish you were here._ Over and over like the prayers and mantras she could sometimes hear him reciting in the blue light of morning if she woke quietly enough to not disturb him, like the recitation of their plan she mouthed under her breath, waiting until dark to slip into Jabba’s palace, her heart in her throat the entire time.

Pressure answers her, like a breath whispered over her mind, unnatural as the invasion of Darth Vader’s interrogation but warmer, gentler. _Luke,_ she thinks, her eyes flying open, drinking in the darkness. Reaching back to her, not with words, but with a mental caress. Comfort and concern wrapped in acknowledgement and apology, sweet with the rhythm of his breathing in deep sleep, the look in his eyes when he spoke of his home, his childhood.

 _I miss you,_ she thinks again, this time concentrating on the feelings in her heart, projecting affection and warmth as best she can, the gratitude she feels for their months spent together. _Be safe,_ she thinks, when worry threads its way into memory. _Come back to us when you can._

She feels warmth in return, her own or Luke’s she wouldn’t trust herself to say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes:

It might be of interest to know that my master’s degree is a Master of Education in Cultural Studies with focus in communications and difficult dialogues, and that the entirety of this story was written while I was on holiday in Thailand, a country I had previously only visited as a businesswoman, never as a tourist. Mostly, though, I wanted to take a deeper look at Luke the farm-boy from Tatooine, and Leia, the book-smart politician who has seen much but has never really _lived,_ and explore what that dynamic might look like in a setting where Luke isn’t learning as he goes, where he’s got the knowledge and skills needed for them to survive and move forward with their plans.

There’s way more of this story waiting in the wings, but I’m happy with what I have here, so I’ll be writing the rest later.

The poem Luke recites is called “Blessing” by Imtiaz Dharker. The full poem can be found **[here](http://emilyspoetryblog.com/2013/06/28/blessing-by-imtiaz-dharker/)**. I love the idea of welcoming a guest to your home with a blessing of water, and that Luke would slip back into that habit immediately upon returning home to Tatooine.

Also, Han’s kind of an asshole. I’m very sorry/not-sorry about that. Don’t be confused: I love him dearly, ~~just I love Luke way more, is all,~~ and I think Han’s often written — by myself as well as others — as much gentler and kinder and more empathetic than he’s presented to us in canon.

Also- _also,_ this isn’t meant to be Luke/Leia, but if you want to look at it as such, I ain’t gonna stop you because, honestly, I don’t know yet if it is or isn’t. We’ll have to see where the story goes once I’m stuck on an airplane with nothing to do but sit around and steep in my personal theories about someone else’s characters.


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